Well, it’s the end of the season and we decided to have a night out – unfortunately Nicol’s over in Zermatt getting punished by Swiss Snowsports trainers, but we managed to get everyone else together before they disappeared off for the summer.

On the way we tried to consume our body-weights in the Pub’s mini-burgers, got some very colourful but mostly disgusting shots from Marc and found that Westy and Bruce use the same tailor.

We also discovered that the cocktails in Coup d’état are quite pokey. And that you’re not actually allowed to leave the Pub early if Toby’s standing next to the bar.

Finally, we confirmed that it’s always the old men who stay out latest, with Toby, Kent, Westy and myself propping up the bar and mocking Colin’s bump in his brand new Subaru into the wee small hours.

And it looked like this…

Every year maniacs from all over the world come to hurl themselves down Mont Fort in the hope they can go faster than any of the other maniacs… And they stay up into the wee small hours servicing the skis. Like this chap:

Yup, a royal cock up in MET-office-land, so we got no snow but blue skies instead. And we can’t really complain – even the M25 was amazing… (Oh and did we mention it was empty EVERYWHERE?):

So we should be running around town acquiring the rest of our equipment for the start of the torture tomorrow, but Caroline is de-heading her plants, Clare and Rich are en route and I am writing this..! Not to worry, we have just found out that there has been a cancellation in Prafleuri hut so the first day isn’t going to be a suicidal dash for the Dix hut…

So below is the route we are taking (well almost) 56km distance and over 8km of vertical ascent and decent. EASY. The wonders of technology doesn’t reach to the Haute Route so I will attempt to text Guy updates of our progress..!

Wish us luck.

Yup, the grinning Swede is back in his homeland doing skiing exams which will sadly probably not involve knowing every wine list between here and Aosta inside out. But if they’ve added it to the written exam he’s laughing…

Anyway, to let us know what we’re missing he’s sent a picture of the crazy Apres ski up in Orsa. Looks wild. (OK he says it’s just the soundcheck but I’ve seen Roxette before and I don’t believe it doesn’t get any livelier than this).

And apparently it’s finally stopped raining and he’s enjoying the fierce Swedish sunshine with a beer. Good luck mate, I don’t know what’s tougher – the exams, the rain, the meagre 140m of vertical or sitting through Apres Ski Orsa style…

In contrast to the rather traumatic last post (Russian Avalanche blasting) here’s something rather more therapeutic to calm you down – the view from outside the Smallest Apartment in Western Europe™ this morning…